Dancing With the Devil (12 page)

“Don’t tell me what to do,” she shot back. “I’ll sit
when I’m good and ready to sit, and not a moment sooner.”

The anger simmered unwaveringly until she finally slumped down on the chair and folded her arms.

“Thank you.” His voice was tight and frustrated. “Let’s get something straight now.”

Rhea crossed her arms over her chest and pursed her lips. If he thought for one second she was going to believe anything he said…oooh, he had a lot of nerve!

Deacon cupped his hands behind his back and began to pace in front of her. “I was wrong to leave the way I did last time, I admit that. And while you may have felt justified in shooting me, it would have been nice if you’d given me a chance to explain myself first.”

Guilt niggled the back of her brain. One day she’d have to learn to control herself when it came to Deacon. It probably wouldn’t happen today or tomorrow—but one day.

“No one would have blamed you if you’d left me to the vultures,” he said, “but you didn’t.”

She opened her mouth to speak, then clamped it shut. If this was his way of apologizing or thanking her, who was she to interrupt?

A few seconds later, Deacon stopped pacing and looked straight at her. “I’m sorry for leaving you the way I did last summer, and though I know you might not believe it, nothing happened between Salma and me.”

Rhea was halfway out of her chair when he caught her by the arm again. “I don’t have time for this, Deacon. I need to open—”

“Please.” Maybe it was the way his fingers held her so gently, or maybe it was the soft pleading in his voice. What ever it was, it stopped her from wrenching free of his hold.

Hesitantly, she sat down again, her mouth pinched tight to keep it shut.

“An apology can’t make anything right, Rhea. No words can.”

“You’re right about that.”

He seemed to resign himself to that. “So let me prove myself to you. Let me help you.”

“Help me?” She eyed him cautiously. That darned handsome face of his looked sincere, and he sounded sincere, but still…

“Let me help at the store.”

“No thank you.”

“Why not?”

She barked out a dry laugh. “Mainly because you can’t bear to be around people.”

“Not all of them,” he shot back indignantly. A moment later, he sighed and nodded grudgingly. “Okay, most of them.”

“How would you serve the customers? Besides, if we let you loose out there, the store will be overrun with people just wanting to get a look at you. We’ll never get any work done.”

The muscle in his jaw tightened, his jaw set like stone. “If you don’t want me near the customers,” he ground out, “then I’ll work back here.”

“I don’t need your help.”

Deacon closed his eyes and inhaled a long breath. His chest expanded so much, she thought he’d burst the buttons on his shirt.

When he opened his eyes again, most of the anger was gone—or hidden, at least. With a cocked brow, he nodded toward the box of cutlery he’d been working on yesterday, and sighed dramatically.

“Forks and knives in the same box? Things like this are screaming for my help, Rhea.”

The way his lips quivered against the smile he held back, the way the corners of his eyes crinkled…

“And by the looks of it, someone had the audacity to undo all your hard work with the buttons. Surely that must be remedied straightaway.”

No. She would not find him charming; she would not smile back at him. But if he wanted to work, she’d darn well work his hide off.

“Fine.” She nodded, maintaining her straight face. “You can organize the stock back here, but you will not, under any circumstances, come out front.”

“Believe me, I’d rather sit down to dinner with Gabriel and his cronies than set foot on the other side of that curtain.”

Rhea frowned. “Gabriel?”

That crooked little smile got bigger. “You know—big wings, shiny halo, that whole ‘guess what, Mary?’ thing.”

Rhea sputtered and gaped, and when she couldn’t contain it anymore, she laughed right out loud at the absurdity of it all. Angel Gabriel indeed.

“Can I open up now?” She pushed out of her chair again, but he still wouldn’t let her pass.

“Not yet.” His eyes, still sparkling, held her gaze steady. “Let me be nice to you.”

Rhea choked on her next breath. He had to be joking.

“I’m not asking you to afford me the same courtesy.” He cupped her chin in his hand and brought his face closer until the tips of their noses touched. “Just that you accept the kindness I offer you.”

“Kindness?” She yanked back, narrowing her eyes at him. “I didn’t think that was something your kind practiced.”

The look he gave her sent pangs of guilt racing through her body.

“I’m sorry,” she relented. “That was uncalled for. But put yourself in my place. You made a fool out of me in front of the entire town, yet you stand there expecting me to accept your ‘kindness’ without being the least bit suspicious. You must see how difficult that’s going to be.”

“No,” he said. “I don’t.”

Oh, honestly. Could he really be that thick?

“I trusted you once,” she said. “And look where it got me. I can’t afford to have the town dragging my name through the mud any more than they already have.”

“I’m sorry about before,” he said quietly. “But people are going to think what they want to think, no matter what you or I do.”

Rhea pulled two aprons off the hook and threw one at him. “That may be,” she said, “but it doesn’t mean I should give them reason to continue to trample my family’s name. Stay back here, where no one can see you.”

“Out of sight, out of mind?” he asked, smiling weakly.

“One can only hope,” she muttered as she stepped through the curtain. “But somehow, I doubt it’ll be that easy.”

The three Dietrich sisters stood at the door, peering through the glass impatiently. Tying her apron as she moved, Rhea hurried down the aisle to let them in.

“Good morning, ladies. Sorry to keep you waiting.”

Annabelle swept in first, looking as though she stepped right out of the pages of
Harper’s Bazaar
. Her moss-colored day dress, complete with pearl buttons, lace trim and a large bustle, swished gently over her boots as her matching parasol tapped the floor in time to her steps.

“If this was our store,” she sniffed, “it would never open late.”

“I’m sure,” Rhea muttered.

Donnelda and Suzanne strolled in behind their sister, each one’s eyes searching a different corner of the store.

“Is there something I can help you with?” Rhea asked.

Annabelle looked straight through her as if she wasn’t even there. “We wanted to check if you had any new earbobs.”

“Not since you asked yesterday.” Rhea smiled as sweetly as she could.

Annabelle gave no indication she’d heard a word of what Rhea said, but fixed her gaze on the curtain to the backroom. Donnelda and Suzanne wandered through the store with no obvious destination, even through the tools and house wares, for goodness sake, despite the fact neither had ever been introduced to the working end of a broom.

After several minutes of this nonsense, Suzanne sauntered toward Annabelle and raised an indignant brow before asking Rhea, “Are you working alone today, Rhea?”

“No, Ernest will be in a little later.”

“I see.” Suzanne’s dark hair had been fashionably styled in a soft knot at the back of her head and covered with a bonnet so small it could not possibly serve any practical purpose. But it matched her fawn-colored dress, and that was probably all the reason she needed to wear it.

“Why is the curtain closed?” Annabelle made her way to the counter and openly stared at the obstacle she couldn’t see through. “You never close it.”

Donnelda hurried toward the front to see, too, sending her golden ringlets bouncing with each step. Unfortunately, Deacon chose that exact moment to drop what ever he’d been holding. A loud crash made all the women jump.

“Well, now,” Suzanne said coyly. “I thought you said you were alone.”

“No,” Rhea corrected her. “I said Ernest would be in later.”

“So who’s back there?”

As if they didn’t know. Rhea fought the urge to roll her eyes at the lot of them. If they wanted to put on a show, Rhea would play along, too. In fact, she’d give them a show like they’d never imagined.

“My husband,” Rhea said, biting back as much of the bitterness as she could. “Surely, by now you’ve heard he has returned.”

“Yes, of course,” Annabelle murmured. “I believe Father mentioned something about it the other day.”

All three women kept their gazes fixed on the curtain, as if willing Deacon to come out for their inspection. If they weren’t so free with their money in her store, Rhea would have shooed them all out right then and there. They were about as subtle as a train wreck.

“He tires so easily these days,” Rhea whispered loudly.

“Why is that?”

“It’s been a…difficult…time for him since we were married,” she said, amazed she could maintain a straight face as she spoke. “As you know, we were all led to believe he was dead, but in fact, he was simply hovering on the verge of death for months.”

“Yes, we heard.” Suzanne’s brown eyes grew wide. “But we were told he looked just fine now.”

“Yes, well, looks can be deceiving, can’t they?” Rhea stepped behind the counter and cast a cautious glance at the curtain for good mea sure. If it was a story they wanted, a story they would get—one that would turn every eye away from her and straight onto Deacon.

“What do you mean?” Annabelle was doing a fine job
of looking indifferent, despite the fact her eyes snapped with excitement.

“My husband left a few pertinent details out of the story he told Mrs. Foster.” She forced a frown and shook her head sadly. “Poor man.”

“Details?”

Rhea nodded. “You will keep this in the strictest of confidence, of course.”

“Of course.” The three women leaned closer, eager to hear Rhea’s story.

“The night before I was to leave Houston to come home, we took supper at a lovely French restaurant—”

“Oooh,” Suzanne squealed. “Did you have escargot?”

Rhea’s tongue froze. Escargot? What on earth was that? And did everyone eat it at a French restaurant? She gave herself a mental kick; one sentence into her story, and already she was caught.

Annabelle clicked her tongue. “Land sakes, Suzanne, what difference does it make what she ate?”

Suzanne flushed slightly and shrugged. “I’ve never met anyone who’s actually tried them.”

The other two women rolled their eyes impatiently. “Please go on.”

“Yes, well, as I was saying,” Rhea stammered, “we’d finished our supper and started back to the hotel when we were set upon by two very large men.”

Donnelda gasped behind her hand, but Suzanne looked as though she would jump out of her skin from the excitement of it all.

“I was terrified,” Rhea continued, “but my dear husband, he wasn’t about to let any harm come to me.” She forced her smile to appear wistful, as opposed to the dry smirk that came naturally. “He single-handedly fought off both of our attackers.”

“He didn’t.”

“He did. Thankfully, he wasn’t hurt in the fray, and we were able to make it safely back to the hotel.”

“Then what happened?” Donnelda’s eyes bulged from their socket. “How did he become ill?”

Rhea pressed her fingers to her lips, as though calming herself for a moment before answering. For the briefest of moments, a twinge of guilt twisted in her stomach. Her mother was no doubt spinning in her grave right then, listening as Rhea spun this web of lies.

Oh well. In for a penny, in for a pound.

“The next morning,” she said, “he saw me safely on the stage, and that was the last I saw of him.”

She paused, glanced at the curtain again, then leaned her head closer to the theirs, her voice low. “As I’m sure you heard, the two men from the night before were men my husband owed money to, and they caught up with him on his way back from the station.”

“I find that odd.” Suzanne frowned. “Since I’ve heard your husband comes from an influential family—surely they could have assisted him.”

“Influential?” Rhea couldn’t stop the grin that tugged at her lips. “Well, I guess that’s one word for it.”

“How much did he owe them?” Donnelda whispered.

Rhea opened her eyes as wide as she could. “Quite a bit, I’m afraid. And since he’d cheated them at cards, you can understand why these men were so intent on seeking revenge.”

“So that’s why they beat him so badly,” Donnelda breathed.

Shuffling sounded from the backroom. Rhea held up a hand to shush them, waited until the noises stopped, then continued.

“The beating was only the start of it,” she said. “After they’d taken their pound of flesh, they tied him to
the back of a horse and dragged him twenty miles or more out of town.”

“Oh my goodness.” Even Annabelle’s cool demeanor gave way to a bit of shock. If any of them stopped to think for a minute, they’d realize how preposterous the whole idea was.

“It gets worse.” This was too much fun. “They stripped him naked first.”

Three jaws dropped. Six eyes rounded as big as dish plates.

“And then they left him there, with no water, no food and…” She sighed. “No clothes.”

When she thought they’d had enough time to absorb that juicy lie, she went deeper. “Luckily the Apache tribe found him and nursed him back to health.”

“Apaches,” Donnelda gasped, her expression a mixture of both distress and delight. “They’re so vicious—he could have been killed.”

“He was already as good as dead when they found him,” Rhea said. “And long after they got him back to their camp, he was delirious and half crazed with fever.”

“No.”

Rhea nodded. “None of the Indians spoke English, and my dear Deacon didn’t speak their language, of course, so there was no way to communicate, no way to get word back to me.”

“You poor dear.” Annabelle reached to pat Rhea’s hand. “How awful.”

“The worst part,” Rhea said, “was being told he’d been killed in an accident, when all this time he was alive and suffering.” She covered her eyes with one hand and forced a slight sob. “If only I’d known, I could have sent Colin to bring him home to me.”